Amazon's global biz losses mount to $936 million on back of Indian investments

As Amazon continues to pump in money into its India operations, the e-commerce giant has now reported its highest international losses ever at $936 million for the quarter ending September 30, 2017. The Seattle-based tech major had clocked losses to the tune of $541 million for its international business in the corresponding period a year ago.

Over the last few quarters, Amazon's margins have been impacted due to its continued investments in India as the company fights homegrown rival Flipkart. In the previous quarter the company reported international loss of $724 million while it had racked up losses of $481 million for the quarter ending March 2017 and in December it was $487 million.

Despite registering heavy losses, Amazon's CFO Brian Olsavsky, said in a conference call with analysts that the company was pleased with the positive India momentum. "We had the first Prime Day sale there this year, Prime Music, Amazon Business are also expanding in India. So, a lot of positive momentum and investment going on in India, we are very pleased with that. We also recently announced Echo and Alexa will be available in India. So that should be well received by the Indian consumer base," he said.

On the international front I can't split it, the effects, but it is international expansion and primarily in India where we're continuing to add benefits. And we launched Prime there a year ago, we've had more Prime members join in India than in any other country in the first 12 months. We have free shipping on 10 million items there and we're continuing to add benefits; Prime Video, Amazon Family, Olsavsky said.

TOI recently reported Amazon had infused another Rs 1,620 crore in to its marketplace entity here. The company has been investing in other areas such as fulfilment capacity and logistics services, digital video, besides new launches like Echo and Alexa in India. The revenues from international business for the quarter under review stood at $ 13.71 billion. Amazon doesn't break sales or losses from individual markets.

The company recently announced it will remove the introductory pricing of Prime at Rs 499 here and users soon have to pay Rs 999 a year for Prime subscriptions. Amazon's founder & CEO Jeff Bezos has committed $5 billion for India out of which more than $2 billion has already been plowed into the market. The web retailer has also got the government approval to invest an additional $500 million for launching its food retail business here in India, a category which has huge potential for Amazon.